GERMAN
International Visitors at NSI
A first for Germany, taking place at the Nordsee-Internat: 60 teenagers from India, Thailand, and the Philippines will be guests at the Nordsee-Internat/ Nordseeschule (Nordsee School) from May 16th to June 5th. For the first time, we will be instructing a language course as designed by the Auswärtigen Amt (Department of Foreign Affairs) during the school year . Under the initiative "Schools: Partners for the Future", former Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier created a program involving a network of 1,300 partner schools where German lessons are to be introduced and developed.
This mammoth enterprise is being undertaken not only by the Department of Foreign Affairs, but also the Goethe Institute, the Central Agency for Schools Abroad, the Pädagogische Austauschdienst (Pedagogical Exchange service) and the German Academic Exchange Service. The goal of the project is to offer youth the world-over a chance to forge an early connection to the German culture and language and become familiar with German education methods.
These courses have been taught at St. Peter-Ording, in addition to many other places in Germany, since 2008 - but only during the summer holidays when the local and boarding school students were all on vacation. Through a successful cooperation between the Goethe Institute and the Nordsee-Internat, we have finally managed to organise such a course during the school year. All students now have the unique opportunity to participate in exchanges with teens all over the world. To this end, we are co-planning numerous events and excursions.
